The Difference Between Sacrifice, Saving Money and Stupidity

The quest for frugality and the road to financial freedom naturally come with sacrifice. If you have debt to overcome, the sacrifice may be greater than for someone who doesn't have much debt )or any at all for that matter). You go without to get ahead. You might give up cable TV in order to put that money to better use in savings for a new house. That Expensive car you may put on hold, settling for a cheaper, lower class used model that will do OK for now, because of one reason or another. Sometimes, people even have to sacrifice an amazing private school for a charter or public school for their children because it just isn't a smart idea to go into debt when they can still get a good education somewhere else.

Since the beginning of time, people have given up what they wanted right now in order to save for what they really wanted down the road. Getting to a point where you can see the big picture can take a lot of hard work and practice, and yes, sometimes a lot of heart ache before you can even get a glimpse of it. But once you do, once you get to the point where you realize you don't want to be a slave to debt. You want your money to work for you instead, you also realize that you are going to have to make those sacrifices to achieve that freedom that comes from being financially sound.

Once you start looking at your money and actually start paying attention to where it is going, you may realize that there is a lot of excess "fat" that can be easily trimmed from your budget... Maybe eating out only once a month instead of twice a week. that will save a LOT of money!

Perhaps your families particular needs include cable TC, so that's out of the question of cutting from your monthly budget, but hey... You also realize that you don't need 3 cell phones and a land line, the land line can go and you will gt along just fine.

Now you've categorized every single penny you spend each month and you notice how much you spend on a stupid thing like Dr. visits. Well, there has to be a way to cut that down, right?

No parent will ever sacrifice the health and well-being of their children in the name of saving money. (Let's not get into the debate about the national health care system, that's not what my point is at all...) But what we do tend to do, and I personally know a lot of people who have done this; we sacrifice our own health in the name of saving money.

Even when you have insurance, health care can get pricey!

Growing up, my family was always blessed to have health insurance and with 9 kids, I'm sure my mother gave thanks to God daily for it. But with co-pays for annual check-ups alone, the total cost was close to $200.00 each year. (assuming a $20 co-pay.) Now, I remember my brothers frequently needing to go to the emergency room as well; stitches were commonplace at our house - with 5 boys, there's now wonder. Not to mention broken bones. To top it all off, 7 out of 9 of us ended up having to have our tonsils out. Then there were ear-infections too. Not to mention the shear cost of the labor/delivery for 9 separate births!

Looking at that, it's easy to see why my mom never wanted to spend money on herself... even if it was medical.

My mother always had back problems for as long as I can remember. After carrying and giving birth to 9 babies... I can't imagine why. But she never took care of it. Now she's in her fifties, and while she is still very spry and young at heart, and really doesn't look 50, she feels it every time she sleeps wrong and can't get up in the morning without severe pain just to stand.

We've all been there: Your child has a high fever and is acting lethargic. You rush them to the emergency room to make sure everything is OK. They send you away with no medicine and only the council that it is a just a really bad cold. Get them plenty of fluids and rest.

If your child is sick, you'd sell the house if you had to just to make sure they got the help they needed. But what do you do when you get sick?


Now be honest...

Most of the time, we brush it off as not that big of a deal.

Nothing really bad will happen to me.

It'll pass on it's own.

Well what if it doesn't?

Sometimes we need to sit back and really think if we should suck it up and pay that co-pay to go to the Dr. for ourselves and just make sure everything is OK. Yeah, if it's just a cold, you'll probably know that and you won't need to take yourself in for that, but if it is worse and you brush it off now, will get better on it's own or will it cause even bigger problems down the road?

picture credit

When I got pregnant with my second child, I started having serious back problem, worse than my mother did with her pregnancies. I was even in a wheel chair for a few days because I couldn't even walk. After the baby was born, I still had problem but they got a little better than they had been. When I got pregnant with my third baby, I had more back pain and more frequently, but I never had to be in  a wheel chair, so I just brushed it off. Well, my baby just turned a year old and I'm still having back problems. Bad ones! So bad that sometimes I can't even stand up at all. I kept brushing it off as, "it's something I have to live with, thank goodness it's not life threatening."
Which really translated to, "It's something I'm making myself live with, because I don't want to pay to fix it!"

I start therapy tomorrow.

It's good to save money! It's good to be frugal! It's even good and smart to not run to the Dr. for every little thing, but it's just sheer stupidity to not go in when there could potentially be something really wrong that could be fixed if you catch it early on. Yes it might cost a large co-pay now... but that's better than the arm and leg you'll have to pay down the road because it got worse.

Look at it this way, what good does saving money do, when I'm not there to enjoy the financial freedom I've helped to build?

Even if you don't have insurance, look for other ways to pay for it. Saving your life or even just preventing future costs is well worth it! Think of it as an investment in yourself.

Happy savings, and good health!